How many of our sons' faces were among the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville?

So many heartbreaking themes emerged out of the weekend tragedy in Charlottesville, Va., that it's difficult to know where to start in unraveling them.

We are all too aware that the white supremacy on display is not a new phenomenon. No doubt the Trump presidency has motivated this movement to come out of the shadows and display its hate with unabashed pride.

Yet it's not the politics that interest me as much as the demographics of those several hundred individuals who raced to be a part of Friday night's march -- many of them young white men whipped into a frenzy. How did they get on the wrong road that led to Charlottesville?

While the images of the Dodge Charger, allegedly driven by 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr., plowing into a group of counter-protesters were sickening, the photos that most gut-punched me were those of the protesters with tiki torches in hand and angry raw emotion in their faces.

An innocent young woman died simply because she happened to be in the path of a domestic terrorist's Charger. Additionally, how many dead souls could be counted among young "Unite the Right" marchers?

I was on a vacation in the mountains with my own twentysomething son when a quick glance at Twitter revealed the mayhem of Charlottesville and the awful visuals of the torch-wielding protesters. I initially thought the scenes were part of some twisted parody. The tableaux seemed inconceivable -- was this really playing out in a U.S. state?

And I wondered not only how such hatred grew in the hearts of those men but how their parents could survive seeing those images.

My name is Pearce Tefft, and I am writing to all, with regards to my youngest son, Peter Tefft, an avowed white nationalist who has been featured in a number of local news stories over the last several months.

On Friday night, my son traveled to Charlottesville, Va., and was interviewed by a national news outlet while marching with reported white nationalists, who allegedly went on to kill a person.

I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son's vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions. We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.

I have shared my home and hearth with friends and acquaintances of every race, gender and creed. I have taught all of my children that all men and women are created equal. That we must love each other all the same.

Evidently Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his family's heartbreak and distress. We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.

Peter Tefft, my son, is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer. I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast.

His hateful opinions are bringing hateful rhetoric to his siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews as well as his parents. Why must we be guilty by association? Again, none of his beliefs were learned at home. We do not, never have, and never will, accept his twisted worldview.

He once joked, "The thing about us fascists is, it's not that we don't believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We'll just throw you in an oven."

Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.

Facing the reality that this level of hatred grows in the hearts of our young Americans shakes me to the core. That's not a feeling exclusive to moms and dads, but to anyone who has had a hand in a boy's upbringing.

It's one thing to read antiseptic treatise on the rise of white supremacy/KKK/Nazi sympathizers in the United States; it's a totally different matter to see these individuals in action, fueled by the same hate-filled fermenting of social media that has swelled ISIS' ranks.

These modern marchers didn't care who recognized them as they shouted racial, religious and LBGT slurs during their parade through the University of Virginia campus. Armed with props designed to strike terror in the hearts of people of color and of the Jewish faith.

I want to believe that this is such a tiny sliver of the millennial population that making too much of it is an over-reaction, that indeed the narrative holds that this generation is far less prejudiced than its predecessors. But we really don't know how many people these 250 or so marchers represent.

These individuals weren't born destined for such a sickening display. What now has turned so vile and hateful likely began with the "othering" of people -- those feared or hated because of their perceived differences or status.

No doubt, for some, their parents exhibited the kind of behavior that they are now engaging in. For others, it's concerns around becoming the minority or a sense of broken promises. They expected more out of life and blame others for everything that's gone wrong.

Add to that how far removed we are from WWII and the Civil Rights era; atrocities and inequities are as antiseptic as are those academic pieces on the alt-right.

Vox put it like this yesterday: Among some younger, more internet-savvy people, hatred of "political correctness" has paired neatly with online troll culture, in which pushing boundaries and offending people is seen as harmless at worst and a show of cleverness at best.

In Charlottesville last weekend, all those ingredients boiled over into racial and religious hatred.

The overwhelming majority of us didn't glimpse a loved one among those angry men. For that, we can say a prayer of thanks -- and pledge to model a better way forward within whatever circle of influence we inhabit.